Picking up the pieces
by speakingwordsofwisdom
Summary: Santana is disillusioned, after reading a homophobic newspaper article. Brittany fixes her. Brittana, but featuring Rachel. Based on a real article i read in The Daily Mail.


Ok,this fic was inspired after i was given a horrible homophobic news article to read in school, during a lesson on media. It pretty much fucked up my head: everything Santana says is right from my own head here. I couldnt think of a way to fix everything, so i wrote a fanfiction instead. Its kinda angsty and fluffy nad stupid, but please read it. All articles quotes are true quotes from the article, by the way.

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Rachel has always thought of Santana as a very controlled person...

No.

Rachel Berry has always thought of Santana as an emotionless bitch, too cold to feel anything at all.

Glee has turned them into sort-of friends, but she isn't stupid. She knows what Santana is.

xx

When she goes into the choir room early to find some sheet music, the lights are off but the door is open, and its only when she flips the switch that she sees Santana- sitting in her usual place, on the back row of chairs, between Brittany and Mike.

Except this isn't glee, Brittany isn't with her, and theres no reason for sitting in the dark on your own for the fun of it, not one that Rachel can see, anyway.

She's just sitting there, arms crossed tightly- too tightly- across her middle, a gaze that takes in nothing fixed on the floor.

"Santana?"

She can't just ignore her, she cant just walk away. Maybe she should, maybe thats even what Santana would have her do, if she had the choice...but now Rachel has come a little furthur into the room, she can see how her eyes are red and swollen, her tearstained face, and she can't leave.

She could, but she won't, and she expects Santana to ignore her, she expects to have to fight for a response, but, for some reason, she raises her head and barely even registers surprise at Rachel being there, at the light being on, at anything.

"Hi, Berry"

This is different; this is wrong. This isn't Santana making an effort to be nice. This is Santana too wrung-out to be a bitch.

There is a silence, as Rachel hovers, and Santana stares at her from the back of the room, until in the hallway outside, a locker slams, and they both jump. The situation is too awkward for there not to be a silence, but Rachel is more surprised that a) Santana has not yet told her to go away and b) Santana has been crying.

"Ummm...this is going to sound stupid but-"

"No"

"Ok, i'm sorry"

"No, i...i meant...i didn't mean stop, i meant no, i'm not ok..."

"Oh..."

Then: "Do you... want to tell me why?"

"Rachel, do you ever hate...everything? Everything there is?"

A few seconds for the shock to register at this unexpected :

"What do you mean?"

"Do you ever hate the world?"

"I- I don't know. I suppose...well, its ok, i think..."

"...God, Berry, how do you do it?"

"What?"

"How do you stay so fucking positive? YOU HAVE TWO GAY DADS!"

"Yes...i am aware of that..."

"After all the shit you've put up with about that, and you're still saying its ok? You're fucking crazy, Berry."

"Santana-"

"Its horrible. Its a horrible, horrible place, and- how do you even survive it, Rachel? Everything thats happening, everything that goes on every day-" Santana brushes angrily at her eyes again. "Just... look at it. Just look at it."

"What was it?"

"What?"

"You've read something or seen something or heard something, you must have, because i've never seen you talk like this before, and i want to you to tell me what it was."

Beat.

Crumpleing paper.

Slowly... slowly, Santana opens her clenched fist and tosses a balled-up piece of paper towards Rachel, wordlessly, who catched it.

"Read it." There is a bitterness in Santanas tone that Rachel has never heard before, every word searing vitriol. "Just...fucking READ it. And then-" She suddenly buries her head in her hands again. "...and THEN tell me that the world is a nice fucking place..."

Rachel smoothes it out, feeling her heart sink as she recognizes the newspaper heading printed over the top of the page. A tabloid posing as a broadsheet. Her Daddys dont read it; she had occaisionally scanned articles here and there and mostly left it alone, since she already was aware of what kind of people wrote for The Mail.

__

"...show tolerance to gays and get tyranny in return...are forced to say that we think homosexuality is a good thing, that homosexual couples are equal in all ways to heterosexual married couples...We cringe to the new Thought Police, like the subjects of some insane, sex-obsessed Stalinist state, compelled to wave our little rainbow flags as the 'Gay Pride' parade passes by...multiple horrors of our 'liberated' society..."

Words and phrases jump off the page until Rachel passes the page back to Santana in silence.

"Well?"

"Its The Mail. What do you expect, Santana, they exist to sell papers to other narrow-minded bigots." Rachel notices the flatness in her own voice, and wonders where it had come from.

"Not this!" Santana suddenly jumps up from her chair and stands in front of Rachel, her eyes burning, her body tight and tensed and angry. "This is...they published it, Rachel! They published it in a fucking newspaper! This man has won awards! People read him and listen to him and agree with him! What is up with the world? WHY IS HE BEING PUBLISHED?"

"Don't tell me you didn't know homophobes existed-"

"Of course i knew, Berry, but they weren't being published! They were thugs, and, and losers, and people who blog about how much they hate stuff, and bible-weilding evangelicals, and crazy people and stuff!" Santana swiped her eyes, trying unsucessfully to hide the tears that were threatening to spill over. "They didn't count, they were CLEARLY horrible people to start with, but at least they were accepted as horrible! Now this mans spewing hate into the media and people are saying how brilliant it is? WHAT IS GOING ON?"

"Santana-"

"I just feel-" She spins around and begins to pace across the room, breathing hard. "Everything just feels so AWFUL now! The world- if this hate stuff is praised, WHAT THE FUCK IS LEFT? God, Berry...no one ever says that racists are entitled to their opinions, do they?" Suddenly, she seizes the paper from Rachels hands and rips it to shreds "No one says that the nazis are just doinng what they feel is right! Why is this different? Why does everyone- if you challenge it, they assume you're gay, like you can't even care about it if you're not- why do they say you have to just see the other persons point of view?

I just... OH MY GOD!" Santana flings back her head and shouts, her face blazing, and suddenly hits the wall as hard as she can with her open palm, again and again, sobbing. "I HATE THIS! It feels like beating up against a fucking WALL and no one else even notices that its there, they don't even care, they just...they just..." She breaks off, choking, and slides down the wall, ending up in a little heap at the bottom, her eyes still full of tears, shaking her head, mutely.

Rachel stands, hand pressed against her mouth, frozen. She never expected an outburst like this, from Santana of all people.

Suddenly, an image comes into her mind: herself, aged six, face down on her bed, surrounded by the toys she'd flung everywhere in her anger. Her Daddys sitting either side of her, and trying to explain why her first grade teacher was refusing to allow either of them to accompany their daughter to "Parents day". That exact feeling- like weights on top of you, like clawing against a brick wall...

She arranges her skirts and joins Santana on the floor.

"I know. I know exactly what you're talking about, and I know exactly how it feels. And i don't know what to say to fix it, so i'm not even going to try, ok? I don't know the answers."

They aren't close, and this revelation between them wasn't going to do much to bridge the gap.

"I know." Santana doesn't raise her head or look at Rachel. "Its supposed to make everything better, talking it out to someone...and it doesn't. Now i just feel worse."

"I know"

Rachel digs into her bag and pulls out her phone, and sends the quickest text message she'd ever written in her life.

There is nothing she can say to help, but she knows what to do

xxxx

She expects confusion from Brittany- her normal state, or so it seemed- but there is only sadness in her face as she pushes open the door of the choir room and gives Rachel a small smile of thanks.

Rachel stands up, and Brittany takes her place on the floor.

"Britt..." The ice had thawed, the bitchiness had evaporated ,and all that was left was broken and lost.

As much as Rachel has never seen anything like Santanas outburst, from the way Brittany so calmly draws the latina into her arms, rocking slowly back and forth, from the way Santana curls up against Brittanys side and lets herself be held, from the utter lack of surprise in the blondes face, Rachel can see that Brittany has seen this hidden part of Santana Lopez more than once.

She would say something, if she could think of anything to say, but there is nothing you can say to fix the world. You can't change what is inside people.

Brittany suddenly looks up at Rachel ,and nods in the direction of the scatterd article pieces.

"They made us read the article in social studies. Examples of journalism."

She's not sure why Brittany is telling her this. Santana buries herself deeper into Brittanys arms, sniffling, her head in the crook of the blondes neck, like she's trying to hide from this world filled with hte and intolerance behind her perpetually sunny best friend and Brittany tightens her hold on her.

She doesn't say anything- as Rachel knows, there is nothing to say: not meaningless platitudes, not orders to stop crying, or empty promises that its alright.

She's Brittany, so she only says outloud the things shes sure of: "I'm here, San...always, i promise".

Sure of nothing, Rachel and Santana are silent.

Rachel watches as Santanas breathing evens out, and Brittany raises her friends red, sore palms, and caresses them gently. She watches as her sort-of-friend is slowly put back together, piece by piece, by the girl that has been labelled as "freakin' weird" by most of the school.

She watches as Santana manages a weak smile for the girl she thinks of as her own personal ray of sunshine and sweetness, and she watches as faith in humanity is gradually revived, as it has been, time and time again.

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I'd love to know what you think. Is it as bad as i think it is?


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